Changing currents
Image of the month - September 2001
The tide move water masses, which causes currents. These currents, sometimes violent in straits, are particular in that they change in intensity and direction according to the tides. It is vital for coastal navigation, for preventing pollution and protecting the shoreline, that we understand them and are able to predict them. Project of undersea turbine -like an immersed windmill- to generate electricity from these currents are currently under study.
Altimetry enables tide forecasting to within 2 to 3 centimetres in the middle of the ocean. This helps to constrain local tide models, and to forecast tidal currents near the coasts, where they are the strongest and the most changing -and where their knowledge is the most critical.
News
- Search.
- Front-page news.
Image of the month .- 2024 .
- 2023 .
- 2022 .
- 2021 .
- 2020 .
- 2019 .
- 2018 .
- 2017 .
- 2016 .
- 2015 .
- 2014 .
- 2013 .
- 2012 .
- 2011 .
- 2010 .
- 2009 .
- 2008 .
- 2007 .
- 2006 .
- 2005 .
- 2004 .
- 2003 .
- 2002 .
- 2001 .
- Dec. 2001: Earth's shifting poles.
- Nov. 2001: Tides and the climate.
- Oct. 2001: The Amazon under close surveillance.
- Sep. 2001: Changing currents.
- Aug. 2001: Currents, buoys and children.
- Jul. 2001: Altimetry and lobsters.
- Jun. 2001: An in-depth view.
- May 2001: North Atlantic Oscillation makes waves.
- Apr. 2001: Tracking hurricanes.
- Mar. 2001: Mean rise in sea level is only part of the story.
- Feb. 2001: Where does all the waste go?.
- Jan. 2001: Mercator takes oceanography into the future.
- 2000 .
- 1999 .
- 1998 .
- Press review.
- Operational news and status .
- News from CTOH .
- Events calendar.
